Nostalgia is an under-rated force in history: time goes forward, but people often flee backwards, from crisis and complexity to imagined simplicity and purity. The past can be another country, but it can also be a homeland.
Arabs (Yale, 2019), p289
Tim Mackintosh-Smith writing about Arabs in the early ninth century; seems a very relevant thought for New Year’s Day. Particularly this year?
Great book, too.
The Commonwealth of Heaven 